No Sleep till Wonderland (19 page)

“The
Herald
pictures on the heels of your report already put Timothy in hot water with his boss, so we had no leverage to present our blackmail scenario. Gus and I decided not to tell him anything about it. Then after Timothy saw your pictures of me dressed as the wife, he really lost it, called and threatened the both of us. God, the whole blackmail thing, I think it made everything worse.”

I say, “Eddie never stalked or threatened you, did he?”

“No. Gus hired you that night to watch me because of Timothy. We were afraid he might try something and figured if Timothy saw you, he might think that you, the PI, knew about him, knew what he was up to, and it would scare him off.”

My hands are missing, have sunk inside the sleeves of my jacket as well. It’s only fitting. I say, “Gus lied to me.” I try not to sound like a hurt lover.

“He had to lie and tell you it was Eddie who threatened me because he didn’t want you finding out about the three of us. We didn’t mean to do any of this to you, Mark. Really. We both like you, and we’re so sorry that you got caught up in everything we did.”

We talk faster like it’ll help us avoid true contact. Our noses are almost touching. I say, “The fire was set by Carter.”

“Yes. Yes.”

“How’d he do it?”

“I don’t know. I have no idea.”

We both sink deeper into my jacket. We’ll be part of a fossil site eons from now, and whoever finds us will dream about what it was we said to each other.

“Why are you here with Carter now?”

“He wanted me to come with him. Make sure that I wouldn’t talk, that we were still good, that I was still loyal. He wanted to make that one last score; then we’d be done. I was too afraid to say no, afraid of what he might do to me. I had to play along. When we got here I had to pretend I wasn’t scared of him and I was having a good time. I just have to get through this night and figure out what to do next.”

“Where’s Gus?”

“I don’t know.”

The lamppost light flickers faster. It has lost patience with us. When the bulb is on, it glows brighter and whiter, and when it’s off, the darkness is total. My eyes are starved and greedy for the light.

I ask, “He hasn’t contacted you at all?”

“No. Not since the fire.”

She’s lying. There’s some truth mixed in with the lies. There always is. I ask her where Gus is again. Where is he?

She

       s a y s,

                     “I

                            d o n ’ t

                                          k n o w,

                                                               m a r k.”

Her sentence stretches out, thins, and fades toward the edges. There’s nothing for me to grab on to, and I stumble, waving my arms like no one is paying enough attention to me, then fall. I splash into the empty sea of the parking lot. I’m lost, and I thrash about with arms and legs as dead as wishes that never come true.

Okay, the parking-lot sea is not so empty. Nightmarish leviathans live in these waters, shaking the cowering earth with their tidal movements.

Those goddamn monsters, they swim and fuck and eat and shit in the depths below me; they’re always below me, down in the deep, black, and terrible sea.

And those goddamn monsters, they’re arguing about me. They whisper through machete-sized teeth because they know I’m listening. I don’t speak their language, but I understand they can’t decide what to do with me. They weren’t expecting me even though I always show up. I’m always here, right here.

Without a consensus, and almost as an afterthought, they open their deep, black, and terrible mouths. Say ahhh. I’m going to be swallowed. It won’t be my first time, but someday there will be a last.

Yeah, I’m their Jonah again, but the joke is on them because I don’t believe in them or in anything else.

The leviathans are picky bastards. They chew me up and spit me out again. I don’t taste very good.

I lean against the lamppost. I need the support, but I hate this goddamn lamppost and its epileptic bulb, and want to see it all razed and run into the ground. There’re no bulldozers lying about, but there is a man standing in front of me with his hands in his pockets. I’m seeing myself through Ekat’s eyes. I didn’t realize I was losing so much weight. I never realize how much I’m losing.

But that’s not right. I’m me. I’m awake enough to know that much. The other me is another guy. He’s wearing a similar quicksand jacket, white shirt, loosened tie, and not quite permanently pressed pants. All that stuff could’ve come out of my closet, except for his lid. On his head is that rednosed-reindeer porkpie hat of his. It’s not the red breast on a robin. It’s the piece that doesn’t fit the ensemble. Too showy. I’m a fashion expert.

Gus says, “No worries. I’ve got you covered.”

He pulls something out of his pocket. It’s not a bag of amphetamines. Part of me wishes it were. He has a cigarette, cradled delicately between two fingers, and he lights its short fuse. He dangles it between us, a stolen watch he wants to sell me.

He can’t tease me like that. I’m weak, and I’m buying. Smoke pounds its dirty fists on the walls of my lungs. It’s a clove cigarette, and it waters my eyes and corrodes my delicate system. Just what I need.

I say, “I know you and Ekat are the same person. Case solved.”

“Well done, Mark. You can go home and get some rest then, right? Give yourself a gold star.” Gus laughs, and at me. He’s always been laughing at me.

I say, “Or I can go home and give that gold star to Detective Owolewa.” Yeah, that makes a bucketful of sense. Christ, I need a rewind button sometimes.

I open my mouth to try and correct myself, but I cough instead. I double over, and my lungs turn inside out. My tenderized ribs make an official declaration of hate for me and threaten to leave their post.

I drop the hipster’s clove cigarette to the pavement and don’t bother grinding it under my flat foot. Not sure I can lift my leg that high. I croak something that might sound like “Where have you been?” It’s not easy turning green.

“I wasn’t anywhere, really. In hiding. And sorry I couldn’t contact you or…”

I walk away from Gus. I have nowhere to go, but I feel better already. I check my watch. It’s ten after ten. I don’t know how long I was out here talking with Ekat, but I’m missing at least twenty minutes from my evening. I’ll never find those minutes either.

Gus nips at my heels. He’s simultaneously on my left and right. He says, “I know you’re mad at me, and you have every right to be mad at me, Mark. I’ve screwed up so much, and I know that, and I know that I’m going to pay for it. I’ve put you in harm’s way and I can’t make everything perfect, but I can make it better, I promise. But I need a favor. I need your help. I need you to wait until the morning before you go to the police.”

It’s my turn to laugh at someone. “What happens in the morning?”

“I have a new plan, all right? I’m improvising.”

“I’m guessing you do that a lot.”

“It’s a good plan, simple, not a lot of moving parts, and it’s my last plan.” Gus grabs my arm, and I stop rolling down the hill.

He holds his hands out in front of him, framing the discussion. He’s a frustrated mime. “Ekat and I are going to leave Boston and disappear.” He opens his hands with a magician’s flourish. Houdini without the chains and appendicitis. “I’ve got some places we can go to for six months to a year, maybe longer.” Gus pauses, waves his magic hands, turning that last sentence into a flock of doves. “It doesn’t matter where we go, but we’ll leave tonight as soon as she’s away from Carter. And then you and the cops can have him.” Gus pats my chest twice with the back of his hand. “You’ll look like a hero.”

“Or an accomplice.”

“No, that’s not how it’ll work.” Gus shakes his head. His porkpie hat is a red light. I’m supposed to stop. He says, “Come on, Mark. Follow me.” Gus backs away, toward a pod of parked cars. Or is it a gaggle?

I say, “I already have, and got nowhere.”

Not sure if he heard me. Maybe I wasn’t loud enough. Maybe I didn’t want him to hear me. Maybe, even after everything that’s happened, I still want to follow him for one more night.

Gus fiddles with his keys while standing next to a yellow vintage car. It’s a compact but has long front and back ends. Canvas topped, but I don’t think it’s a convertible. The make is familiar. I might’ve owned the Matchbox version when I was a kid. That’s assuming I played with Matchbox cars.

“Climb in.” He’s an action hero sliding into the front seat. The chrome, glass, and steel is a prefitted body glove. I’m not as graceful upon entrance. I groan and creak as I duck my head and bend my arms and legs, like a retired contortionist who was never any good, even in his prime. Me and cars have never quite worked it out.

He says, “What do you think?”

“Of what?”

“The car. Just picked it up. It’s a ’73 Dodge Dart. Come on, what do you think? I joined an antique auto club too. I couldn’t resist. Supposed to go for a group ride next Wednesday. But I’ll probably miss it.” He runs his hands over the black leather interior and a faded decal of Jesus pasted on the dashboard.

“So far we have Ekat and her wig, you and your seventies mobile and auto club, and your plan to snap your fingers and disappear, and then what? Dine on happiness and shit sunshine for the rest of your lives? What I think is that you—every last one of you—live in fantasyland, or Wonderland as the case may be.

“But don’t mind me. Your car is sweet, man. Did it come with that pack of clove cigarettes?”

Gus laughs, adjusts his hat, then strikes a pose with his arm across the bench seat. “You’re a funny guy, Mark.”

“Yeah. Hilarious. So what are we and your cherry ride doing now, Fonzie? You gonna take me to the hop, then maybe to Inspiration Point for a little necking?”

“I wish, big fella. We have more pressing matters to attend to.” He points out the windshield, and there’s Carter’s Lexus, three rows away. “We’re going to follow Ekat, make sure she gets home safe. For obvious reasons, I don’t trust Carter.”

“I heard it as he can’t trust you. Ekat says you hired Jody and Aleksandar without either of your two high school sweethearts knowing.”

I’m real interested to hear Gus’s response as I’m thinking about my time sitting on a Broadway bench next to Charlton Heston–loving Rita. As long as her well-dressed man in the big sunglasses is who I think he is, then Carter had been visiting Aleksandar’s apartment prior to my fraud surveillance and the fire. Which means Ekat’s timeline doesn’t jibe with Rita seeing Carter entering Aleksandar’s apartment. Something tells me his visits weren’t just teatime social calls, either. If Rita is right, Carter knew about the bagmen, Aleksandar at least, all along.

Gus says, “I didn’t think it was a big deal. I was just trying to make us a little more money and help a couple of people who were really struggling.”

I say, “You’re a regular Robin Hood,” but he isn’t listening to me.

“It was a risk, but I certainly didn’t think it was anything sinister, like Carter did. He really thought I was trying to set him up. I had to grovel, get on my knees and kiss his Italian loafers before he would even listen to me. Then all of a sudden he hits me with a crazy scheme to burn down the building and take those guys out.”

All right, so Gus and Ekat are both lying to me. I think. It’s possible that they’re telling the truth, and maybe Carter knew about the bagmen and was completely playing them. Maybe Rita was wrong in her month timeline, and Carter’s visits to the apartment occurred only after Gus confessed to using bagmen. Maybe the person Rita saw wasn’t Carter. I assumed Carter by her description. Could’ve been anyone. Could’ve been Gus.

I say, “You could’ve stopped Carter, but you didn’t.”

“We tried, Mark.” Gus sings their song about the failed blackmail scheme, hitting all the same notes that Ekat did. I’m getting sick of that tune. He adds, “I screwed up, Mark. What can I say? I fucked up, big time. I never thought Carter would really do it. Why would I ever think he’d go through with something like that? I mean, shit, I’ve known him forever. To be honest, initially I was more worried he would do something to hurt himself with all of the talk about his new career being his life.”

“You could’ve gone to the police. Aleksandar would still be alive if you did.”

Gus drops his head into his chest, soul searching. I don’t think he’ll find one. His voice goes soft, presumably in honor of the dead. “If I had known any of this was going to actually happen, I would’ve. I’m going to make it up to Aleksandar’s family, somehow.”

I laugh. I don’t think he takes it well. “You almost believe your own bullshit, don’t you?”

Gus wisely doesn’t respond.

I say, “You thought Carter was enough of a threat to have me follow Ekat home.”

Gus shakes his head. “Well, yeah, in the aftermath of our botched blackmail scheme and Carter’s phoned-in threats to knock out our teeth, I thought Carter might be a threat to me or Ekat. I know it’ll sound corny, but I also felt really guilty about using you the way we did, and I wanted to make a restitution payment of sorts. Give you an easy, paying gig to ease my conscience and help your wallet. You don’t know how close I came to telling you everything about Carter and the fake surveillance that morning in your office, but you seemed a little on edge and I chickened out.”

“I’m not buying any of it. Including your putting a price tag on pity.”

“What do you think we were doing, then? Really, Mark, why would I have continued to involve you if I actually thought Carter would set the fire? It makes no sense.”

“A lot of stuff you and Ekat have done so far makes no sense.”

“Touché.”

“Why not go to the cops after the fire?”

“Would going to the cops after the fact have changed any of it? I wasn’t about to send me and Ekat to jail for Carter.”

“But you could let the fire be pinned on an innocent man, right?”

“We’re going to fix that, Mark. You tell the cops everything tomorrow. Give them Carter on a platter. And not for nothing, Eddie is a lot of things, but innocent isn’t one of them. He’ll be fine.”

“Eddie isn’t fine, won’t be fine, never was fine.” I pause to breathe and pull the plug on my
fine
perseveration. “Eddie’s in jail right now. Did you know—”

Gus interrupts and points out the windshield. “Hey, here they come.”

The king and queen of Wonderland promenade arm in arm across the lot. Their smiles sparkle like shattered glass on asphalt.

I say, “They seem to be getting along swimmingly.” I watch Gus and wait to see if that designer coolness of his is ever going to melt away.

He says, “She’s doing fine, supersleuth.”

Carter and Ekat untangle and separate when they reach the Lexus, but no one bows to their left. Ekat pulls a black bag out of the trunk, ducks inside the already started car, and they’re off.

Gus starts his obnoxious engine but leaves the headlights off. He says, “Let’s give them a twenty-second head start. Do you want to count?”

I don’t say anything. That’ll learn him.

Gus leans across my chest and opens the door. The déjà vu makes my muscles hurt all over again. He says, “You can leave and go to the police now, if you really want to. I won’t stop you. Or you can stay with me and we’ll make sure our friend Ekat is okay, and if nothing else you get a ride back to Southie.”

I dig under my shirt sleeve and find
our friend
’s rubber band and snap it. Then I shut the passenger door. I say, “Drive. You’ll talk about me behind my back if I don’t come with you.”

We’ve established that he and Ekat are lying to me, but I don’t know to what extent. I’m staying to find out. I’m not staying because he said the word
friend
. Really, I’m not.

Gus rolls across the lot, lagging a few hundred yards behind the Lexus. Optimum distance achieved, Gus turns into a narrator. “I don’t need to be right on his tail. He’s just going to drop her off at her apartment.” He looks at me, and his confident veneer cracks momentarily, showing off a worried, oh-shit-I-can’t-stop-what-was-started face. It’s the first time tonight that I can almost believe any of what he said might be true.

I relaunch into the ballad of Eddie. I tell him about Detective Owolewa finding my amphetamines and concluding that I was a drug-buying client of Eddie’s. I tell him about Eddie staking out Gus’s place, Eddie thinking the two of us were somehow setting him up to take the fall for the fire, and Eddie pounding me into shape with a few well-placed but lucky sucker punches and then dumping me on the Zakim Bridge like I was pothole filler.

“Jesus, Mark. I had no idea.” Gus takes off his hat and runs his fingers through his not-thinning hair. I could say that I hate him, but I’d be lying to myself again. “I couldn’t be sorrier about what he did to you. But I don’t care about Eddie. I’m sorry if that sounds callous or if I’m rationalizing, but he isn’t a good guy. He’s dangerous. Clearly, he’s always been dangerous. He treats Jody like shit. I’ve seen him hit her in the middle of the bar, man. He’s no good. It was why I was trying to help her out financially and let her use the cards and IDs. She kept all that ID stuff from Eddie, too. She never told him.”

“I know. I already got all that good stuff from Jody.” I blush even though Gus has no idea why I would.

“Did you? Nice show. Man, you’re good.” He laughs, and goddamn me, now I might be blushing at his praise. He adds, “What Eddie did to you is further proof of how dangerous he is.”

Gus pays a toll, and the Dart descends into the gullet of the Ted Williams Tunnel. The engine roar echoes off the walls, and it sounds like the tunnel clearing its deep throat. Carter’s Lexus is about a quarter mile ahead of us. We’re all headed back to Southie. Wonderland is already a million miles behind us.

Gus says, “I know that I’ve been saying Carter started the fire this whole time, but I don’t really know that. He’s responsible, don’t get me wrong, but who knows? Maybe he went and actually paid Eddie to do it. Carter knew Eddie, talked to him a few times at my bar. Carter knows what Eddie is. For all I know he paid off Jody’s crazy friend Rachel. I remember reading somewhere that she was first at the scene, right? Fuck, I don’t know. I wouldn’t put it past any of them. But that’s not up to me to figure it all out. Give the cops Carter, and let them sort out the rest when we’re long gone.”