Authors: Lisa Sandlin
Ouvre tes bras et serre ton cher enfant
.
Open your arms and hold tight your dear child.
HE'D GOT E.E.'S point about beingâ¦over-involved, he thought, selecting that word instead of
fool
. He did not go into business to freelance or to pro bono, in Miles' lingo. But Mrs. Toups commanded his sympathy, and Daughtry Petrochemical irritated the shit out of him. Besides, Phelan Investigations was twiddling its thumbs, and Miss Wade was not talkative these days.
Phelan scoured the Willises in the phone book and told Delpha he was going out. Cruised down I-10 West and took the Gladys exit, found the address. Let's see. Did an assistant chemist live in the sandstone palace with the green slate roofâor did he rent the garage apartment Phelan could spy the corner of, '58 Rambler wagon parked by the wooden stairs?
Meeny, miney
.
Phelan admired the fins and the chrome of the Rambler, dusty as they were. Noted that, in contrast, the driver-side door handle and a six-inch diameter around it gleamed. Boxes were stacked solid in the back of the wagon. He climbed the garage apartment's stairs. Bamboo curtain rolled down behind the door's dirty glass. Phelan knocked, waited, knocked again. He thought maybe he heard a cough, so he put his ear against the door. He banged. Nothing. He took out a little snake rake pick. Presto, knob turned.
Door barricaded.
Phelan shoved. The barricade scrambled away with a whimper, and the door hit the chain, opening its allotted amount.
By the window that faced the big house stood a folding table with a stack of colorful magazines, a phone, two large plastic bottles of something clear, wadded tissues. Pizza boxes, soda cans on the olive-green carpet. Against the far wall was a couch Phelan could see part of. It featured about half of Plato Willis's ass as he dove onto it, then spun around armed with a golf club.
Phelan produced his license, reached his hand into the room. “Tom Phelan, Mr. Willis. Private Investigation, check it out.” He waved the license. “Mr. Willis?”
“It's
Dr
. Willis, I hold the Ph.D. Keep away from me. You've entered illegally.”
“Almost,” Phelan said and kicked the chain loose.
Way too much force, the door whanged back and dealt his elbow a crack.
Ow
. He strode into the apartment rubbing it. Place smelled like a hospital. He stepped over to scrutinize the two plastic bottles. Rubbing alcohol. Willis' chin was stubbled and his fair hair dank and stringy.
“You drinking this stuff?”
“Of course not.”
“Good. Just have a question or two. Won't takeâ”
Plato Willis glowered at Phelan through his round glasses while wobbling the club in front of himself, like a peeved insect working its feelers. “You. You were the one at the lab during the week we moved, pretending to be a salesman. Sure you are. You have hands like a catcher's mitt.”
Insulted, Phelan was inspecting his hands when the phone on the folding table rang.
Willis tossed the golf club and dived to snatch up the
receiver, listened, then with a quavering smile, exclaimed, “Thank god, thank god! Where've you been?” instead of hello. He shook his head vigorously. “No, no, I
didn't
know. No one told me. I thought that youâ¦excuse me, I'm sorry. Oh no please, you go on.” He turned his back on Phelan, hiding the receiver. He kept nodding, murmuring “Yes, yes” and “I would, so much” and “Thank you.” He cagily informed the person he'd be at their house in the usual amount of time it took him to drive there plus four hours. “Absolutely self-sufficient. Not like last time. Yes, it is. A solemn vow.”
He set down the receiver and squeezed his hands together beneath his chin in a kind of congratulatory self-hug. Then he dashed into the bedroom, commanding Phelan to get out.
Phelan followed. “Did Wallace Daughtry offer your head chemist's formula to Enrocoâor did you?”
A cocoa-brown suitcase lay open on the bed, one side packed. Willis clapped the case closed, but not before Phelan had seen baggies filled with powder and capsules nestled among the clothes.
“Sure you wanna take all that relaxation? Starting a new life and all.”
“It's only methaqualone. Like generic Nyquil.” Willis snapped the suitcase's locks and hauled it out to his gracious living area through a slalom of beer and soda cans. He swiped a set of keys off the folding table and looked up at Phelan. “Who are you working for?”
“Employer's name is confidential, and I've been paid. Job's over. So I guess I'm working for me. I wanna know what happened at Daughtry.”
“You want to
know
? Oh my god, a neophyte.”
Phelan sighed and took a step toward the man. “I'm tired of you, Plato. Just talk.”
Plato skittered away to the couch. “You're a big guy. If you're forbearing, if you let me be on my way, I'll mail you all that information.”
“And I've got two dicks.”
“No, I mean it. In case the police pursue whoever damaged John Daughtry, I want them on the right trail. And that is not my trail.”
“Nobody damaged Daughtry, pill-head. He's in Arizona.”
“Exactly.”
“What does that mean?”
“Nobody wants to be in Arizona. Not John Daughtry either.”
“But he's sick.”
“Correct. And how did he contract said illness.”
“I don't know. Ate a bad can of spinach?”
Plato blotted his upper lip. “Or someone gave him tainted food or drink. Or mixed some noxious, noxious bacteria into a solvent that would readily penetrate his skin. DMSO, something similar. Even you ought to see how simple that would have been in a lab.”
“And that's why you're hiding.”
“I'm not hiding, I'm relocating. At long, long last.” The chemist's voice grew tight, high. “Wondering which toxic substance you might have come in contact withâthinking about that can be unnerving, all right? It canâ¦absorb one's entire attention. Especially at three a.m.”
“Well, come on, what's your nightmare? Nobody cares but me, so spill it. It'll be a relief.”
Willis began to breathe faster. “I found a box in the lab. It had “BACTERIA” scrawled on it in red pencil. Inside were vials with dropper capsâamber, not our usual lab glassware. John was already sick. I freaked. Just let it crash to the floor. One
vial bounced out and broke. I'm not”âhe scooted over to the card table, soaked a tissue with alcohol, swabbed his handsâ“a biologist. I took the other three vials to a med lab to be tested. One contained a ruffian strain of e-coli. John Daughtry might have had contact with that one. Or with the second one. Listeria.”
“What'sâ”
“It's worse, that's what. The thirdâ”
Phelan raised his eyebrows.
Plato swallowed. It clicked. “Mycobacterium tuberculosis. The immune system can contain it. Or not. You civilians think TB's been eradicated. It hasn't. There are hyper-virulent strains, and mutations can render them drug-resistant. Speak to a certain hospital in Boston, and they will assure you that is not science fiction.”
Palpating the skin beneath his jaw, Willis lowered himself onto the couch. “But the incubation period is two to twelve weeks, and I'm not ill. There's nothing wrong with me, and as far as I've heard, there's nothing's wrong with Wallace. Or Elliott.”
“It was you took the logbook.”
“I never said that. I'm a mere gopher.” His voice turned bitter, and he tipped his head like a seesaw. “Beaker here, beaker there.”
“Yeah, right. Still have it?”
Willis's forehead ruffled. “Let's just say it is not currently in its designated location.”
“OK. Let's just say that. And let's say Elliott may be healthy, but his marriage is terminal. Somebody sent a set of incriminating pictures to his house, and he's headed to court. With his own lawyer.”
Plato hung his head between his knees. His back began to heave.
“You didn't know about the divorce.”
Plato's head rolled back and forth. The gasps kept coming. Phelan slammed drawers in the kitchenette and found a paper bag, handed it to Willis. He breathed into it a while, then lifted his head. His flushed face began immediately to jettison its color.
“Lloyd's wife isâ¦not the kind of wife I'd ever care to lose. She could buy Portugal.”
“So? Lloyd's a lawyer. He makes a good living.”
“Small, small change, Blue-Collar-Man.”
“Why would you care whether Elliott's married or not?”
“I don't,” Plato shrilled. “Weren't you aptitude-tested for this job?”
“If I knew what was going on, I wouldn't've broken in here. You say somebody poisoned John Daughtry. If the poisoner sent pictures to Lloyd's wife, you're in for a nifty surprise. You're the only chemist left in this picture, big man. Maybe
you
poisoned your boss.”
Plato sat up, his mouth squeezed into a slit devoid of lips.
“Your lead guy Robertsâ”
“Robbins.”
“Robbins. He had cancer. My blue-collar guess is that you took advantage of that. Snuck his formula over to Enroco and collected. Took the logbook. Took the notes. Let them read or copy them, whatever R&D thieves do. This was a Plato Willis operation, start to finish.”
Phelan didn't believe this. He wanted to see what would happen.
Plato's mouth still clamped shut.
Phelan feigned patience. “Look. Robbins developed this great product for Daughtry, but it escaped, didn't it, right into Enroco's lab. Daughtry sued. But the lawsuit ended up with him settling. So why didn't Daughtry settle with Enroco
when he first caught wind of the theft? Why not take the money and give them the rights then? I may not know much, but I know that. Because Daughtry wanted it for his company. Loved his company. Your girl Margaret told me that.”
“God, Margaret.” Plato tittered hysterically. “Wallace fired her after the reception at his gaudy new office. Loaded her up with party leftovers. Her severance was chicken salad.”
Phelan stared at him. “That's some shit after thirty-odd years. Maybe Wallace poisoned his old man.”
“Oh, make no mistake. Wallace is the Real Thing, if you grok what I mean. He'd like to buy the world some coke. Except he wouldn't share.”
“OK, and since Dad's disabled, everything's Wallace's. Right?”
“Why should I tell some freshman private investigator?”
Phelan stalked over to the wall, gave it a prodigious slap. Plato's gaze jumped toward him. He strode back. “Fucking talk.”
“It wasn't all Wallace's. Charles had a cut written into the contract. He'd been fiddling with these compounds for years. Charles Robbins was extremely bright.”
“And Lloyd wrote the contract.”
“All of them.”
“So what would happen if Robbins died? Like he did.”
“His percentage was to be paid to his heirs.”
“There it is. How'd they get around that, how'd they screw him out of it? Has to be Elliott. He wrote in a loophole.”
The corners of Plato's dry lips curved, indenting sets of parentheses at the sides of his mouth. “Actually, he didn't. It was already there, and all Lloyd did was to push the magic paragraph under Wallace's runny nose. Charles's percentage was good for anything he developed
and Daughtry produced
.
That was just how Lloyd wrote it, no ESP involved. John Daughtry controlled his own products. Everyone in the industry knew that. Always had, always would. Charles believed his future was assured. But if Daughtry didn't produce, if Enroco became the producer, Charles wasâ”
“Out. So what looked like a settlement
was
a sale. Enroco'll manufacture Robbins' formula, package it, sell it, send Daughtry a check. Which the Daughtrys will not have to split with anyone. Wallace talked his father into it. How?”
“Don't ask me. Moondark's a soul-stealer.”
“Lay off the kid stuff.” Phelan stomped a Fresca can on the floor.
“Would you stop projecting hostility, my nerves are shredded. The nickname just fits Wallace. He doesn't even mind it.” Plato coughed and deflated into the back of the couch, limp. “I don't have children and probably never will. But I was a child once, and believe it or not, my father loved me. I was his only son. Wallace is John's only son. Stretch your limited imagination.”
Phelan paced the path by the table, enjoying kicking the cans and boxes out of his way. “Last question. Does Wallace have a wife, 5â²7â³ or so, older than he is?”
“Please. Moondark dates strippers.”
Phelan had the whole story now, except he didn't. No, he did. He really did. He mostly did. Give or take a few details, there was only one way this could have gone. He nodded to the man on the couch.
“OK, Plato, drive careful. Don't end up in Arizona.” Phelan slipped out the door, hesitated, then stuck his head back inside. “Don't think about what kind of bacteria might have been in the vial that broke. Keep your mind off that one.”
He closed the door.
DOOR LOCKED, BED pulled out from the wall. They could lie or kneel or sit on it and it might travel, but it would not hit the wall because once it had inched too close, they would lift the bed out into the room again and set its legs down easy.
After the very first times of muted, awkward amazements at what happened between them, there were one-word questions and adjustments, and plain simple doing so that their bodies learned each other's. She could come by sucking him off. Had to pause and shudder it out and then finish Isaac, then wipe her lips on the sheet and look at him and put her mouth on his. Isaac trailed his tongue down her belly, his hair tickling her skin, his palms spread on her thighs. They were as silent as they could manage to be. One might lay a hand over the other's mouth, then remove it to find a complicit smile. The window was pushed up far as it would go and the fan spinning and they were always slick with sweat.
The various lies she had thought of to end it would be more trouble than they were worthâ
she was tired of this thing, she had met somebody else, she had a boyfriend somewhere who was coming home to Beaumont
. These would lead to false stories and arguments she didn't have the heart to make up, much less carry through.
“We got to quit now, Isaac.”
“Let's don't. Let me stay a while longer.”
“No. I mean you got to go back to your school and finish.”
“What?” He lifted himself up on his elbows and stared down at her. “We talked about this. I can graduate here. At Lamar. I'll keep laying tile and go to classes. My credits will transfer. I can stay.”
“No. You can't.”
Delpha twisted so that he had to move. “It's not the same, and you know that and don't play-like you don't because that would mean you think I'm stupidâand that'd mean you been playing this whole time. And if you have, well, maybe that's OK for you because men do that to get laid.”
“Yeah? Did men tell you thatâ¦or was it women again and who are
they
? They don't know me. They can't speak for me.”
Isaac swung his legs around, snagged his jeans and jerked them on. He brought over the chair and sat in it, elbows on knees. “You're freaking me out. The only time I've ever pretended was when I brought back your handkerchief. I did that as an excuse to see you again. Is this about college, like you think college is exalted or something just because you didn't go?”
“It's about being where you're 'sposed to be. It's about being where I'm 'sposed to be. You're 'sposed to be there. Back there's your right place, Isaac. Not here.”
“You've got it wrong.”
“I really don't.”
“If I was thirty, would you do this?”
“You're not.”
“I will be.”
She looked at him without arguing.
His head sank, and he tugged on his hair. “No. I had this. I had it. It's beyond great. Don't take it away from me. Please.” He reached, blindly.
Delpha dug her heels in the mattress and pressed herself against the headboard. The sound of the fan spinning became
more prominent, her awareness of the ends of Isaac's hair lifting and settling in its wind, the swell and sway of the curtains. Down the hall came shuffling footstepsâa door closing, clink of a toilet seat going up. After a while, a flush and another clink. Footsteps. Door shutting.
Isaac, folded over.
“Truth. Your dad was still alive, you wouldn't be talking any long-range tile-layin', would you? You'd be leaving this week, next week, something like that.”
Isaac threw himself back in the chair and gradually the broad shoulders curved around his chest.
“I'd have made my case to him. Dad would have heard me out. He wouldn't have gone for it, probably, but he would've taken me seriously. God. He always did. Even when I was a little kid, you know like four or five, he treated me like I wasâ¦like I had some kind of dignity. Which meant I had dignity.”
“Precious thing.”
“That was my father.”
“What about your mother?” she murmured.
“You know. She wants me back East yesterday. I worry about her. Mom's always been nervous, but now she's fanatic to the max, can't reason with her. Losing Dad crushed her. She wants to move because she can't stand the house without Dad. She watches for him to come through a door, I catch her at it. You're doing the distraction thing again. Stop it.”
Delpha hooked the straps of her nylon slip around her wrist like a bracelet and slid from the bed. She walked behind him, naked, wrenched back his shoulders, ran the heel of her hand down his knobby backbone. “You want to be the man your dad was, don't you?”
He shrugged away from her hand, though not out of reach. “If it takes me all my life.”
“Then listen to him. Be better if he was here, but he ain't, so listen hard.”
She buried her lips in his thick, tangled hair.
They stayed there some time. Until finally he stood up, took the white slip out of her hands. He tossed it onto the bed and embraced her, his hands under her buttocks, then on them, then wrapped around her waist. She raised up on her toes and crossed her arms around his neck.
Delpha kissed him, released him. She pulled a dress off a hanger and over her head, fit her bare feet into flip flops. “Get your shoes on. Walk you down,” she said. “You come say hello next summer and show me your diploma.”
“
Don't
talk to me like that, like some casual friend. That's bogus and you know it.” Isaac tried to lock her gaze, but she looked away. He skinned into his T-shirt, tied on his sneakers, jerking the laces, stuffed socks and underwear in his pockets. “Delpha.”
“What?”
“Was I like this game to you?”
Delpha pulled his hand, towing him with her, and sat on the bed. “'Member those paths you explained to me.” She curved the ends of her fingers into his, ran her thumbs over his knuckles. He let her.
“Whether your scientists are right about that or not, I thought a lot about what you told me. I listened to you, Isaac. My path, it ran a long, long time the same way, straight and low and rough. Took on some people like family and endured others I didn't want to know. Then it ran into your path and that way wasn't rough and it wasn't low. It was sweet. I wasn't playing for keeps, Isaac. But I wasn't playing. That's about the best way I can explain it.”
She stood at the curb, tracked his red taillights into the
distance, thinking his name.
Isaac. Isaac
. Her body already was bereft and her room, her good safe room, would be wracked and haunted for some time. She had practice though. When a friend, a cellmate moved on to the outside or elsewhere, it was a wrenchâoften a relief, sometimes a loss, sometimes both, but always there was the refiguring, letting go, the empty space, the dealing. No choice, no exit. Deal.
It was around three in the morning. August 15. Delpha locked the side door, hung the key back on the nail, used the kitchen telephone in the dark. Streetlight angling in through the half-glass of the back door. The counters were sponged clean, deep gray in the shadow.
“Hello” was terse and immediate.
“I told Isaac we got to quit. He took me serious. He's headed home now. You treat him like a man 'cause he is one.”
What must have been a held breath released into the receiver. “Iâ¦I'm in your debt. I won't jeopardize your freedom, you have my word. We also are quit, Miss Wade. Except for one matterâdo you want justice for those fourteen years of your life?”
“Justice. I wish that old man would never ever cross my mind againâthat'd be my very first choice. I'd pick that over anything. But there's a place in my brain where he is, he and his son, that son. Answer the phone at noon. I'll know by then.”
Delpha sleepwalked downstairs. Mrs. Bibbo was sipping her breakfast coffee, as usual these mornings, watching Frank Blair read the news on
Today
. Delpha poured her own coffee and eased down beside her. This is what you finally learned to do after a hard-to-suffer changeâall the things you did before. But you paid more attention to anything pleasing you could squeeze out of them. Anything. You didn't play like
nothing was wrong, but you didn't cry in your beer either. Like she'd had beer to cry in. What she had now was a strong cup of black chicory coffee and a couch that was not property of the state of Texas and an acquaintance who was alert and friendly and had neglected to comb the back of her hair.
The camera swung onto somber Hugh Downs and Barbara Walters. Mrs. Bibbo rose and spryly turned down the volume. A fullblown editorial was about to roll. Delpha set down her coffee. She took a comb from her purse. Once Mrs. Bibbo had positioned herself to orate, she stood behind her and began working out the tangles. This small attention did not deter Mrs. Bibbo. She informed anyone not paying attention to Frank Blair that the President would be addressing the nation tonight in prime time.
“In
my
opinion, saying you take responsibility for what your employees did is the inside-out way of saying
you
didn't do it! The public has had it up to here”âshe chopped her hand to her neckâ“with lying and cursing. Nixon has to give up these tapes. He needs to lead our country now like he has some decency and respect for the office.”
Mr. Nystrom, who preferred taking his breakfast at the little game table rather than the dining one, cackled over his toast until he choked. When he got through spraying crumbs, he said, “Roberta, if your body was as sweet as your mind, I'd marry you tomorrow.”
Mrs. Bibbo stepped out of the range of Delpha's comb so that she could fluff her own hair. “If your Social Security check was as big as your mouth, I'd say yes.”