The Barkeep (34 page)

When his father was finally escorted through the locked door, Justin stood and wiped his hands on his jeans.

“Justin.”

“Dad.”

There was an awkward moment as they stood face-to-face, Justin noting a bruise beneath his father’s eye. Justin’s father reached out his hand. And Justin gave it a shake. And then quick as a breath, as if embarrassed by the press of flesh itself, they took their places across from each other at the table.

“How’s it going?” said Justin, looking away from the bruise.

“The same. Every day in here is the same.”

“You getting by okay?”

“What choice do I have?”

Justin turned his gaze directly on the bruise. “What happened to your eye?”

“Do you want the details?”

Justin thought for a moment. “No, not really.”

“I didn’t think so.”

They talked about nothing for a bit—the weather, politics, Frank and Cindy and the kids. They talked about nothing because Justin was somehow afraid of what was behind the door of the huge something he was there to talk about, afraid of the disappointment that would inevitably be found there. And was it inevitable? Of course it was; he was dealing with his father. But when the nothings petered out, he gathered his courage and said finally, “I have some news.”

“Good news?”

“Not if you’re Janet Moss. She killed herself last night.”

“My God.”

“She shot herself. In the head. This was after a detective asked her some questions about Mom. And in her house they found a set of earrings.”

Justin’s father leaned forward. “What kind of earrings?”

“Earrings that matched the description of a set that was missing from our house.”

Justin watched as his father absorbed the news and made the calculation. After a moment his father softly banged the table with a fist. “Who knows about this?”

“Just the police for now. And they might have a link between her and what happened to Uncle Timmy.”

“My lawyer’s name is Sarah Preston. She needs to know everything. Everything, Justin. Will you do that for me?”

“You know what this means?”

“It only means I’ll still be here tomorrow.”

“You don’t seem as excited as I thought you would be.”

His father pressed his lips together and lowered his voice like he was telling a secret. “You know what kills more people in here than a shiv in the shower? Disappointment. If you start getting ahead of yourself, each day is like a kick in the teeth. Just tell everything to Sarah.”

“Okay. I will.”

“Good boy.”

“This is going to do it, Dad. You’re going to get your new trial.”

“We’ll see.” His father looked away, as if struggling to take it all in while keeping his emotions in check, and then he turned back to Justin and stared at him for a moment, as if he were studying a stranger’s face. “And if I do get the new trial, then what?”

“The prosecutors won’t move forward. They can’t. Any first-year law student could punch a hole the size of the Holland Tunnel through their case. The whole thing will be dismissed.”

“And then what. I mean, what will it be like between us?”

“You’ll be out.”

“Thanks to you.”

“I didn’t do much of anything. I just—”

“Stop. Justin. For six years I’ve been telling everyone who would listen that I didn’t kill your mother. Others, like Frank, might have believed me, but you were the one who actually did something about it.”

“Maybe that’s because I had something to do with you being in here in the first place.”

“You just told the truth, son. I don’t hold that against you, I never really did. If I vented, it was just because in here everyone needs a target. I know I wasn’t much of a father.”

“Dad, stop.”

“No, listen. I was the worst I could possibly be, arrogant and self-absorbed and intolerant of any of my own flaws that I saw in my boys. I was a bastard, and when I cheated on your mother, even though it was part of our arrangement, I was also cheating on you. I choke on my own bile when I think of the way I was.” He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “Of all the things I regret in this world, I regret that the most.”

“You were what you were, but that’s the past. We’ve all moved on.”

“Some failures you never move on from.”

The guard from the door stepped over. “It’s time, Mac.”

“Thanks, Rondell. This is my son Justin.”

“Nice to meet you, Justin.”

“He graduated Penn Law.”

“That’s pretty fancy,” said the guard. “Very nice. Where do you work now?”

“Zenzibar,” said Justin.

“International, huh? Good for you. You must be proud as punch, Mac.”

“I sure am. I’ll be there in a minute, Rondell.” He waited until the guard was back at the door. “He’s a prick except when
there’s family around. But Justin, what I wanted to say, if I ever get out of here, I swear I’m going to make amends for the way I was before. I’m going to be the kind of father you deserved. I know it’s too late, I know I can’t make up for what I was.”

“Dad.”

“What I want to say, and it’s hard for me, but it’s this. I love you, son. I never told you enough.”

“You never told me at all.”

“Maybe it was too scary for me to express, but I did. And I do. And everything will be new if I get out. I promise.”

“Okay, Dad.”

“I just wanted to say that.”

“Okay.”

“I guess it’s time.”

His father stood and Justin stood with him. They stared at each other awkwardly for a moment. Justin saw more tears in his father’s eyes and had to look away for a moment. His father reached out a hand and Justin took it. And they shook. And then, suddenly, before Justin even knew what was happening, they were hugging, hard, like they hadn’t done in years, like they hadn’t done ever. And Justin felt something wet on his neck. His father’s tears? On his neck? It was impossible and it was happening.

Sometimes, against all odds, the deepest, most unlikely dreams come true.

Justin watched through his own tears as his father pulled away, nodding with an exaggerated show of self-possession even as he wiped his eyes and nose with his palm. And while Justin watched his father turn and make his hunched walk to the exit, Justin felt the peculiar lift of a young man with a future when the future begins to come into focus and it is
lovely beyond imagining.

But before Justin’s father reached the door, he stopped and turned around again and came back to Justin, gripped his shoulder, pulled him close so he could whisper.

“Could you do one thing more for me, son?”

“Sure, Dad. Anything.”

“That girl I was seeing, Annie? Annie Overmeyer? She’s still living in the city. Find her and tell her I’m going to get out, finally. Tell her to hold on a little bit longer and then we’ll be together, forever, just like I promised.”

51.

CHAMPAGNE COCKTAIL

H
is name was Mark from King of Prussia. He traded stock options for some firm with three names on Market Street that Annie Overmeyer had never heard of and he smelled of a cologne notable for its not-so-subtle hints of oak and arrogance. He was talking now about a killing he had made in the market that very day, amused at his own brutal cleverness. A Rolex sprouted on the hairy wrist of the hand that was wrapped firmly around a glass of high-priced Scotch; his other hand rested heavily on her thigh. When in the midst of a whispered comment his tongue burrowed into her ear, it was as blunt and wet as a salamander’s snout. And every time he squeezed her leg, it was like he was crushing her soul.

It had started with Mark from King of Prussia like it always started with the Marks from King of Prussia, with a drink. The trader had been sitting at the other side of the bar, and he had given her the eye, his trading eye, she assumed. She had smiled back, out of mere politeness or, maybe more truthfully, out of long-ingrained reflex. And next thing she knew a Champagne Cocktail was coming her way.

“This is from the gentleman over there,” had said the barkeep as he presented her the drink, seven words like seven
slaps on the face, coming as they did from Justin Chase.

That cold son of a bitch.

It was her own fault for letting him seduce her in the first place. Not seduce her into bed—there was no trick in that, a line as stale as week-old bread and a bottle of Jack or Jim was all it took—but seduce her into thinking that his being with her was maybe more than just another notch on his futon, albeit a notch supercharged with a little oedipal hot sauce. There is no fool like a slutty fool, as Annie insisted on proving again and again.

Their morning had been as brilliant as their previous night, sweet and rough and wildly romantic, and neither had been touched with the lubricating mendacity of alcohol. For a moment she let herself believe what before she had always known to be lies. But when he came back up the stairs after dealing with that cop, he was already someplace else.

“I need to run an errand,” he said.

“Good, because I have a report I need to finish at work.”

“I’ll call you there.”

“I might answer.”

“You’ll answer,” he said, and he was right. She would, he had made a believer out of her. A believer in what? In the stupidest of things, that something bright and full of promise might reach down and save her life. Justin ex machina? Why not, why the hell not? And the kiss that followed was just as passionate as all that had come before it, just as true, and when it came to kisses, she knew true. It carried her home on a cloud. She went to work late, hid at her desk, and spent the day waiting for his call.

And waiting. And waiting. Not that she didn’t deserve it. Not that the city wasn’t full of men who had spent untold hours waiting for her calls just as she was waiting for his. But there she was, waiting. And waiting.

She knew she was in trouble when the delivery boy brought the flowers, a large bouquet of daffodils and daisies and white roses. Her heart soared and swooped in flights of rapture. White roses. Who could resist? She was like an actress reciting to herself her acceptance speech while waiting for her category to be called at the Oscars. But the boy gave her not a glance as he passed her desk and placed the flowers on a desk at the other end of the hallway. For Phyllis, a truly sweet woman whose face, at that very moment, Annie wanted to rip off her skull.

She swore she wouldn’t call him, swore she wouldn’t knock on his door, but it only took a few moments of pacing in her apartment after work, exasperated and hopeful and heartsick all at once, before she started dressing for an evening out. And where she was headed wasn’t in doubt from the moment she picked out her brightest red lipstick and spikiest heels.

Zenzibar.

When Justin saw Annie Overmeyer walk into his bar, he felt a disappointing lurch of emotion.

The lurch was disappointing because he had spent hours on the tatami after visiting his father, working to rid himself of the emotional attachment he had felt for Annie just the night before. That emotion was all based on illusion, he knew, lies about a future that existed only in his fevered imagination and would never survive the mutable onslaughts of reality.
Fear it not. Be not terrified. Be not awed. Know it to be the embodiment of thine own intellect.
It was all a trick of the mind that would immediately be exposed upon his father’s release from prison. Better to drain its power now rather than wait for it to drain his sanity. And so he had worked hard on letting the
emotions flow through him and out of him, and hoped that would be the end of it.

And then, of all the gin joints in all the world…

He had been trying to have a serious conversation with Cody between serving other customers, hoping to glean what was really going on with him, when she made her entrance. And he wasn’t having much luck with Cody, either. Something had happened to him, something strange. Cody was nervous, hyper, scared absolutely, and yet full of a weird optimism about his future.

He was making Cody’s third Sidecar of the evening, drinks that Justin was still paying for in exchange for the detective work, when Cody had said, “When I get back, I’m going to buy this place.”

“Let’s keep our ambitions modest,” said Larry, who was sitting beside him, “and say that when you get back, maybe you’ll actually buy your own drinks.”

“No, I’m serious. I always wanted to own a bar.”

“How are you going to afford a bar?” said Larry.

Cody winked. “I can’t talk about it.”

“Afraid someone else will jump at the opportunity?”

“There you go.”

But there was something in the wink that wasn’t all hope and cherries, something cheerless and frightened. Cody was into something way over his pay grade, and Justin couldn’t help but think about what Detective Scott had asked regarding whether anyone Justin knew had fallen into money. Or how shaken Cody had seemed by an obituary he had read. Or, and this concerned him the most, how Cody had thanked Justin for setting him on the path of his newfound success.

“You haven’t run into that old guy since your visit to Dirty Frank’s, have you?” said Justin.

“No. Why?”

“Just thinking,” said Justin. “He’s not a guy you want to hitch your wagon to.”